This book brings together contributions from leading authors in the field of dissociation to facilitate the pursuit of integrative clinical scholarship, connecting psychoanalytic thinking and practice with dissociation research and treatment.
Dissociation is not merely altered consciousness, it is an attack on consciousness: on memory, identity, and goal-directed action. The attempts by early psychoanalytic theorists to grapple with this clinical entity were marred by the very same frustration evinced by contemporary descriptive psychopathologists who were faced with understanding the similarities and differences between dissociative symptoms and disorders and other types of psychopathologies. The DSM-V and ICD-11 categorize at least six dissociative disorders. Some of these diagnoses have provoked controversy and skepticism. Whilst many, if not most, clinicians will have encountered various forms of dissociative psychopathology, Dissociative Identity Disorder remains an elusive and contested presentation. Perhaps in parallel to the disorder itself, it continues to be challenging for theorists and clinicians to view the field as a whole and contain the disagreements, contradictions, and paradoxes.
This book will be of use to researchers and students of clinical psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
Edited by:
Paul Cundy,
Golan Shahar
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 620g
ISBN: 9781032909141
ISBN 10: 1032909145
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 28 March 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Time to (re-)integrate dissociation into psychoanalytic psychotherapy? An introduction to the special issue on dissociative disorders and psychoanalytic psychotherapy 1. The curious reader’s guide to dissociation: understanding dissociative processes, a Commentary 2. When daydreaming becomes maladaptive: phenomenological and psychoanalytic perspectives 3. Dissociative identity disorder: a disorder of diagnostic and therapeutic paradoxes 4. Dissociative depression: a psychodynamic view 5. Metaphoric, metonymic and psychotic somatoform dissociation 6. Self-medication, traumatic reenactments, and dissociation: a psychoanalytic perspective on the relationship between childhood trauma and substance abuse 7. Addressing dissociation symptoms with trauma-focused mentalization-based treatment 8. Dissociation in suicidal depression: a Reformulated Object-Relations Theory (RORT) perspective Epilogue: The Formidable Human Need to “Not Know”
Paul Cundy is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychodynamic Psychotherapist. He is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Leicester, UK, and Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Golan Shahar is Professor of Clinical Health Psychology, Zlotowsky Chair of Neuropsychology, and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev where he also heads the Stress, Self & Health (STREALTH) research lab. He is also Adjunct Professor of Child Study and Adult Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and the former International Editor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
